“A New Study on Reading in the Digital Age” appeared in a recent issue of Teacher Librarian. The study, carried out by Scholastic, surveyed 1,045 children age 6-17 and their parents (for a total of 2,090 respondents) in an online survey in the spring of 2010.
The results of the survey are broken down into categories. The categories and some of the notable findings are:
READING BOOKS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
• During the ages of 6-17, the time kids spend reading books for fun declines while the time kids spend going online for fun and using a cell phone to text or talk increases.
• Parents are concerned that the amount of time kids spend with digital technologies is taking away from the amount of time they spend reading, exercising, or spending time with other live human beings.
• Technology might be a motivator to actually get kids reading, however: over half of the child respondents noted that they would be interested in reading more if it was on an ebook.
These findings suggest some things that we certainly already know—electronic gadgets are both ubiquitous in the lives of youth and a cause for worry in the lives of adults concerned about their youth. These findings also suggest something that we have known was coming (is here already, in fact) for a long time: ebooks and ereaders are bound to have an impact on the world of books and reading, and it makes sense that this impact would perhaps be greater felt amongst youth as youth tend to more quickly and easily embrace new technologies. What we do not yet know is how large this impact might be and exactly how it will affect things like school libraries, child and young adult reading habits, and what kind resource commitments might be made by school districts to change with the times—will districts consider spending money on ereaders? Will districts spend money on making ebooks available for download via the school library? Who will maintain these new technologies—TLs or district computer/network technicians? Considering such concerns as software obsolescence, does it make sense for a school district to invest at all in a technology that will likely transmogrify so quickly and to such a degree that in a number of years the technology may very well be irrelevant?
THE VALUE OF READING
• Children and parents agree that the most important reason to read books for pleasure is to open up the imagination and be inspired (Sir Ken Robinson rejoice!).
• Eight in ten kids feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when they finish reading a book.
• Around twenty percent of kids read for fun less than once a week.
For all those who fear that the imaginative mind of a child is no longer inspired in the realm of books (and likely only inspired in the midst of a first-person shooter game on Playstation), there is good news here. Creativity and imagination still are cultivated via books. And kids even feel good about completing a book. This small detail brings up an interesting point: books maintain a physical presence that ebooks or any digital content do not. For whatever reason, most people I know—certainly myself included—feel that sense of satisfaction when finishing a book. Is it because the physical turning of pages allows us to literally feel and concretely see our progress over time, whereas the clicking of a mouse and the downward scrolling of a bar does not? Perhaps. Is it because this small physical act that occurs with book reading is more akin to the basic performance of physical tasks that we as humans have come to know as necessary and good since our early evolution than is the act digitally “moving through” information with a more vague sense of when we started and when we completed?
ROLE AND THE POWER OF CHOICE
• While many parents actively try different strategies to make their children more engaged in reading—and this is certainly a positive—it is ultimately the power of personal choice that is the most critical motivator to getting kids to read. Children—and likely humans in general—are more likely to finish a book they choose themselves.
• Parents are generally pleased with their children simply reading—whether they are reading Jane Austen or Mad Magazine might not matter too much to many parents.
Teachers have always known that student choice results in increased engagement, increased performance, and often more robust learning. It is certainly good for parents and school libraries to offer well stocked collections of a wide variety of books. The second piece of information presents an interesting suggestion: while it is certainly better for kids to be reading anything rather than nothing, at what point might a parent or teacher try to suggest reading with more literary merit? Further, this information is part of what likely reinforces the generally accepted notion that there are “school books” and “personal reading book”: students know that they will read Shakespeare and Orwell and Atwood in class—why would they invest time, therefore, reading it outside of class (particularly when the initial investment of brain power and effort required to “get into” such literature is often times greater than that required for pulpier fiction)?
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